They ride on broomsticks – or backwards on goats, according to the German artist Albrecht Dürer. They hold midnight sabbaths. And now they are taking over the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

One of the major art shows of 2013 in Scotland will be an exhibition at Edinburgh's modern art museum called Witches and Wicked Bodies. In a bold departure for a modernist venue, it will span 500 years of art history, including Dürer. But why are witches modern art all of a sudden?

In his painting Witchcraft, also known as Allegory of Hercules, the 16th-century painter Dosso Dossi depicts a sinister group of people at a nocturnal banquet. Is witchcraft going on here, or is that a romantic title? Dossi was fascinated by the idea of the witch. His painting Circe portrays an ancient Greek enchantress from Homer's Odyssey. Dossi puts her in a contemporary Italian landscape, gives her a tablet inscribed with what look like spells, and makes her a beautiful sorceress.